Osborn Fiber Studio

I’m behind on blog entries, because for the last couple of weeks, I’ve been too preoccupied with actually spinning to bother writing about it! Not at all a bad problem to have.

When I finished knitting up the socks I spun for in February/March, I was so jazzed about them that I wanted to start another sock spin right away. But I was unwilling to start a new spin while my Icelandic spin, started a whole year ago, still languished. It had been too overwhelming to continue.

Finally, I said to myself, you know what? This is a bulky singles spin. I bet I could just do one batt. It wouldn’t take that long. So I made myself do it.

It took two evenings.

After that, it was just repeating. Another day finished a small batt, and then there were only two more. There wasn’t even any plying to worry about – it’s surprising to me what a difference that makes.

One final morning put these greasy skeins through a thorough scour, and they dried overnight.

And that’s how a sweater spin that had been overwhelming me for a year – to a general plan that had been overwhelming me for a good eight years before that – was completed with minimal effort in less than a week. I guess the old proverb about eating an elephant is true: one bite at a time. Probably also applies to the true story of the man who ate an airplane.

I kept skein-by-skein notes on this project’s ravelry page, according to which, my grist varied greatly: between 856 and 1242 YPP. I may have to stripe skeins in the final project, or do a grist gradient like I did on my Oran do Chaora.

The truly surprising note is how much more yarn I have than I thought. I must have haphazardly weighed my batts to begin with; I thought I had about 1 lb. Well, after washing out a goodly bit of grease, I have over a pound and a half of yarn! That’s about 1500 yards, and my swatch from a year ago knit up around a DK-weight gauge.

My plans are for a top-down yoked pullover of my own design. It’ll have to wait a while, but like every yarn I make… I really want it to be the next cast on.

At the same time, it sat for long enough as batts; I can let it sit as skeins for a while. Meanwhile, I’m eyeing up the rest of the ancient part of my fiber stash…